What is a Navy shellback?

United States Navy. The U.S. Navy has well-established line-crossing rituals. Sailors who have already crossed the Equator are nicknamed Shellbacks, Trusty Shellbacks, Honorable Shellbacks, or Sons of Neptune. Those who have not crossed are nicknamed Pollywogs, or Slimy Pollywogs.

What are the different Shellbacks?

There are the Pollywogs (sailors who have not crossed the equator), the trusty Shellbacks (sailors who have crossed the equator), King Neptune (highest ranking Shellback), and his royal court.

What happens if you cross the equator?

It was a way for sailors to be tested for their seaworthiness. When a ship crosses the equator, King Neptune comes aboard to exercise authority over his domain and to judge charges brought against Pollywogs that they are only posing as sailors and haven’t paid proper homage to the god of the sea.

What happens during a shellback ceremony?

During the ceremony, the Pollywogs undergo a number of increasingly embarrassing ordeals (wearing clothing inside out and backwards; crawling on hands and knees on nonskid-coated decks; being swatted with short lengths of fire hose; being locked in stocks and pillories and pelted with mushy fruit; being locked in a …

Why do Navy sailors wear bell bottom pants?

The idea was that sailors who would be working on the topmost decks, who were presumably swabbing it or whatever sailors did up there back then, would want to roll their pants up to keep them from getting wet or dirty. Bell-bottoms even appeared on the sailors’ dress uniform as far back as the early 19th century.

What is a navy blue nose?

A Bluenose, sometimes incorrectly referred to as a Rednose, is simply a sailor who’s crossed the Arctic Circle, above 66°34′N. Just like crossing the equator, there’s a Line-crossing ceremony, and once you’re done, congratulations, you’re a certified Bluenose.

What is it called when you cross the International Date Line in the Navy?

If you cross the equator at the International Date Line (about 900 miles east of Nauru), you become a “Golden Shellback” (since those who cross the International Date Line are called Golden Dragons).

What is a Golden Shellback mean?

In the U.S. Navy, when a ship crosses the equator a time-honored ceremony takes place. This is a Navy tradition and an event no sailor ever forgets. A Golden Shellback is one who has crossed the equator at the 180th meridian.

What tattoo do sailors get when they cross the equator?

Shellback turtle
An anchor tattoo symbolizes a Sailor’s crossing of the Atlantic. Sailors may get a Shellback turtle once they have crossed the equator and get initiated into ‘King Neptune’s Court’.

What is the meaning of the word wog?

The term (a contraction of golliwog — an old “blackface” child’s doll) was something derogatory and racist. Here is the information from Wikipedia: Wog is a slang word in the idiom of Australian English and British English. In the UK, it is usually employed as an ethnic or racial slur, and considered derogatory and offensive.

Is the word wog offensive in the UK?

Whilst it is extremely derogatory in British English, in Australian English, it may be considered non-offensive depending on how the word is used, due to reclamation and changing connotations. In England it is usually employed against Mediterranean people, including Italians, Iberians, Greeks, North Africans and other Middle Easterners.

Where did L.Ron Hubbard get the term wog?

Hubbard probably picked up the word ‘wog’ during his time in the US Navy. Wog, short for pollywog, is a term used for an inexperienced sailor with no racist connotations. When he crossed the equator by ship in 1942 he would certainly have been called a wog by King Neptune.

When did the term wog become widely diffused?

The slur became widely diffused with an increase in immigration from Southern Europe and the Levant after the Second World War and the term expanded to include immigrants from the Mediterranean region and the Middle East.